[Jack-Devel] Helper threads with lower priority?

[Kjetil Matheussen]

On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 2:54 PM Johannes Lorenz <j.spam at lorenz-ho.me> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
>
> we run a DAW (LMMS) with jack and would like to exploit multiple cores.
> Currently, we have one jack process (using `jack_set_process_callback`)
> and multiple other processes that share all the work. The problem is
> that only the jack process has RT prio. Imagine the following example:
>
> * 4 threads, of which one is the jack thread, 3 have lower priority
> * 4 tasks (e.g. 4 instruments play one note each)
> * the realtime process is finished quickly, the other threads get
> preempted by the kernel
>
> These are situations where using such non-realtime helper threads can
> threaten realtime behaviour. What is the best practice?
>
> * Is it possible/good to use multiple rtprio threads controlled by jack?
> (multiple clients, or multiple threads in one client)

I'm not sure what the problem is...

Are you asking if all your threads can call jack_ functions? There are
some jack functions (jack_get_time I think) that can be called from a
different thread, but this is explicitly documented for each function.
If not, it's probably safe to assume that you can't call a jack_
function from a non-jack thread.


> * Should we keep using our non-rt helper threads?

Probably...

> * Should we be single-threaded, to have a (probably) longer average
> time, but a better worst-case time?

Probably not...

> * Should we start with helper threads and only the last few jobs will
> only be run by the realtime thread (to avoid problems like in the
> example)?
>

In this scenario, is the realtime thread waiting for a non-realtime
thread? Then the answer is no. ;-)